Dhananath Fernando  00:11
Hello, hello everyone! Welcome to Advocata Studio, and today also we are going to talk about Sri Lanka tourism at the same time on the female labour force participation in connected with Sri Lanka tourism. If you are following, of course, the global news, it's all about what is happening in the Middle East, and as we know, there's a massive impact on the tourism industry across the world. At the same time, when it happens across the world, it is of course distilling down to the Sri Lankan economy, and at the same time, as Advocata Institute, when we are actually looking at the numbers on the demography, and that's why this conversation is quite crucial and important. You will be surprised that our population is kind of shrinking, and you may have realised that the grade one classes, the number of classes, either the number of student population or this number of students in a in per classroom, either it's coming down, and at the same time, if it is not the case, the competitive Colombo schools basically they have increased like the catchment area who can apply for that particular schools because after COVID, the population, the school population is basically coming down, and with that has the challenge of how are we going to bring resources, mainly the human resources, to this tourism industry, which is mainly like a people's industry. You really cannot have like only robots or like you know only the screens to run it. You need to have hospitality, smiling people, and that's what we are good at. And that's where the female labour force participation coming into play. To discuss all that, we have two experts today with us. We have Hisham Singh Havanso, who's the chief executive officer of Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts. Hisham, welcome to Advocata Studio.

Speaker 1  01:55
Thank you for having us here. Very very happy to be here.

Dhananath Fernando  01:58
And Hisham, also, if you want to refer some of our content? Earlier, we had in our growth conference. Hisham did an excellent session on how we can improve the productivity in the hospitality industry. And also joining us with us today is Ms. Ishara Nauful, the Chief People's Officer of Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts. Thank you very much, Ishara, for joining with

Speaker 2  02:21
us, it's a pleasure. All

Dhananath Fernando  02:23
right. First of all, Hisham, to start the conversation, how is the industry doing? I mean, as a strategy, as we know, keeping aside the entire like the global dimensions aside, how is the industry doing after the after the crisis, what's the strategy? How things are moving as we speak?

Speaker 1  02:44
So, okay, I think the industry has been doing very well over the last couple of years. We've been seeing good growth. I know. I mean, you just mentioned about the Middle East situation right now, which is a concern. But if you look at 2025 as a calendar year, Sri Lanka had the best tourism arrival year. From our point of view, also Daranab, we had a good year. We finally can say that we can forget the pre-COVID numbers because all these years we've been comparing pre-COVID versus performance, and I think last year, for the first time, we beat those numbers from occupancy and a rev power point of view. So that's a good, good kind of indication of how you know things have recovered. And another thing to note as well is India has been the big engine of this growth. So we've had 2.3 million tourists last year. Out of that, about 500,000 is Indians, and that grew about 20% year only. And we expect that number to grow next year as well. So, as an industry, I know we have this blip now of the Middle East war, and it'll play itself out. I think can have a positive impact to us as well because all the Middle East tourism that goes into Middle East can be diverted to us. We believe in the next 234, years because we are so close to this fastest growing large income in the world, India. These numbers will grow to three, 4 million tourists very easily. So we are very optimistic and positive about Sri Lanka and Indian Ocean in general,

Dhananath Fernando  04:21
Isham. Just a quick follow-up question. So, with that optimism, how is the situation of the workforce? Because people are needed to run this industry, and we had record number of tourist arrivals, as you mentioned. And also, what we see is, especially in particular, your chain is. I mean, you are now into sort of integrated resorts, and which is, you know you know the product seems to be I mean as a layman's point of view seems to be becoming quite complicated and also luxurious so the expectations are also getting increased so what's the situation when it comes to the workforce are there shortages how how this system works

Speaker 1  04:57
so from a labour force point of view. I mean, it's one of the key priorities for us. For I mean, like I said, we have we believe this demand will grow into the country, and regionally also we believe you know after the Middle East, in the medium term, you know places like Dubai and Qatar and now Saudi Arabia will start to grow as well, so that has always been a big shock to our labour force. When Qatar World Cup happened, and before that Dubai happened, they come in and shock our labour force. A lot of skill migration happens in in the industry. So we believe one of the key strategic priorities for us, or one of the big concerns we have in terms of catering to this demand is people, as you said, we are a people industry, and we cannot use AI to service it. But we believe the biggest threat or concern-it's a kind of existential problem for us. We believe if we don't have enough people in the industry, we won't be able to kind of cater to this demand, and that's why to this today's conversation, women participation in our labour force or in the industry is a key strategic priority for us, and it has been for the last four five years.

Dhananath Fernando  06:13
So, Shara, on the when it comes to cinnamon hotels and resorts, I know there was a drive on increasingly female labour force participation. In fact, I was at one point planning to join a panel discussion, and if the chairman was supposed to join, and unfortunately, that the the female panellists dropped out, and there was a challenge because I think according to your internal guidelines, there has to be female labour force participation, even if the chairman appears. You cannot have like you know gender bias. So on on that context, I would like to know like what is the inclusivity strategy as the people's chief people's officer? What is mainly the strategy running at the cinnamon hotels and resorts? And what made you to think on that way is what is important to us.

Speaker 2  06:59
No, because as Hisham started off saying, dear thin talent is a big, you know, challenge which is going to come our way and which is already there. So and also when the regional markets open up, we are going to lose a lot of our talent. And in the Sri Lankan labour force, it's about only about 30% of the female population is in the workforce, and the others are maybe they are doing some other work, but it is not tracked. So, in that sense, we need more and more females joining our business because that is not a not actually a choice anymore. It is it is a very necessary thing to do. So, in that sense, we have been actually focusing on our inclusivity policies and processes for the last five to six years. And in 2022, if I may mention the numbers, we were almost we were about 14 percent. And before that, in the 20 or

Dhananath Fernando  07:58
chain,

Speaker 2  07:58
yes, 14 percent. 14 percent. That is the cinema hotels and resorts, and that before that in 2020 to have been about 10% Right. So you know we have consistently worked towards improving our female numbers, and now in this year we are almost hitting 20% So we have a target by 2030 to hit 30% female population in the cinema, hotels, and resorts business. So, for that, we have been continuously working on multiple avenues. And as a first step, we have actually I we have actually spoken to our female colleagues. Now, as Ishan mentioned, we have about 1000 female colleagues. Out of that, about 14 properties, we did an in-depth survey where we found out that you know what were the challenges you know pertaining to why females were not even if we attract why they were we couldn't retain some of them, and why even attraction itself was low. So therefore, we worked on you know a comprehensive strategy to improve our female numbers, and that's how we have been working. Sir, you mentioned

Dhananath Fernando  09:06
it was at one point 10% and it improved to 14% And your strategy is to like increase it to like

Speaker 2  09:13
30% 30% Now, now

Speaker 1  09:15
is 20% Now it's currently we

Speaker 2  09:16
are at 20% Okay. By 2030, we need to take it up to 30%

Dhananath Fernando  09:21
As an industry, do you have a benchmark figure? Like you know, what's the current? So it's

Speaker 2  09:25
about less than 10% Less than 10% About 10% Yes.

Dhananath Fernando  09:29
Interesting. And now, having said that, like it's. I mean, we all wanted females to get in, get involved in the labour force participation, but I mean, the challenges are also not easy, especially particularly with the taboos or like with the perceptions that we have related to the tourism industry, sometimes I mean you have to work late, and it's like a 24/7 job, not related to 27 and four job, but you know the service has to be run 24/7, and regardless of like you know the the time of the year, things has to move. So how I mean, in terms of thinking it through that traditional, I mean, the cultural lens, how are you thinking to approach it? Whether it is more like you know revenue point of view, or like an income point of view, or whether it's like you know skill point of view, or whether it is like providing more facilities because there has been you know the child care. There are so many aspects when when we think of women getting participated to the labour force, especially including in your industry. How are you going to? I mean, how shall I ask that? Strategizing to operationalize it. How are you going to unfold it to reach the 30% target, or even yeah. So as

Speaker 2  10:44
I mentioned, that we did a comprehensive survey with our internal staff as well as you know you know outside certain you know like AGAs, grammar cervicals, and we went around you know talking to some thought leaders from the industry as well as outside, and we asked them exactly what is really stopping. Of course, we always knew that the social cultural barrier was big because tourism was looked at as an industry where women will get corrupted and there is no future kind of you know as you know if they join the industry then they can't get married they can't you know in the social perspective they were not looked at you know as we were not employers of choice in that sense so but what we did was with that survey, we found out four very important reasons that that we need to focus on. One thing is the industry itself. We needed to look at our people, our people, and see what is stopping, you know, for us to kind of invite more females to join and to sustain that, you know that labour force in the business, so we had to kind of internally look at our leaders, our people, and what kind of perception that we had internally, and then also we had to look at our infrastructure and also our policies and processes whether we have a conducive environment within and what more we need to do to kind of improve that. So in that sense, we really came up with some important aspects. One thing on the policy process governance side, we made sure that our anti-harassment policies are strengthened and that we have a zero tolerance in terms of any harassment. And also, when it came to our leaders, we created more awareness, more discussions, more even we got more of them involved in decision making to say, okay, what can we do? How do we really improve? You know, how do we really encourage females to join our business, and how do we really grow them? And then, and also in addition to that, we also looked at our infrastructure. And infrastructure also, you know, as a traditionally we had done 90% males working in our business, and only about 10 or eight to 10% females. Therefore, we haven't really done a lot in internally to accommodate more female employees. What do you mean

Dhananath Fernando  13:22
by infrastructure? Accommodation

Speaker 2  13:24
and facilities and things like that. So we really we worked on in each property. We looked at okay, if we want to increase numbers, what more do we need to do? We converted some of those male accommodations into female accommodation, and we also brought in, like you know, you know, to make it more psychological safe place, we instal CCTV cameras. We made sure female security is brought into the properties to make sure that they have you know comfort. And in addition to that, we also we also did lot of awareness. We created lot of awareness internally to ensure that we we kind of create a very safe working environment for females. So all this, I think, has helped us improve our numbers.

Dhananath Fernando  14:17
Got it, Hisham. Now she mentioned about Ishara mentioned about like the internal processes. At the same time, as a CEO, generally you try to get like the bird's eye view. So, are there any particular policies that is? I mean, I understand the the the company policies side, but there are also the government policies in terms of work hours. Sometimes the transportation guidelines, and I'm not sure whether if they are I mean staying at the same I mean same premises whether there are I'm sure there are a lot of HR codes and labour codes are there any policies that is basically restricting you as a company to recruit females because of the law not because. Of a company policy, but any public policy level challenges is it in existence, which basically stops up stops you of giving more opportunities for women.

Speaker 1  15:11
Traditionally, it has been a problem. I think after years and years of kind of advocating for it, I think with EFC we are big part of EFC. Only last month, Ishara, we got the gaset done on I think gaseted on female working hours for restaurant workers after 10 p.m. So until last month, women in this country could work after 10 p.m. So we are a hospital in India, like you said, it services 24/7, so that was a big barrier for us. Still, there are regulatory issues around bartending and things like that, which is not the norm around the world. But thankfully, this government has moved it forward, and we're hoping that more and more things can be done to kind of, you know, ease that friction in terms of the policies from the government point of view, but adding on to what Ishar also mentioned, I mean overall, you know, we have to. It's a big priority for us to kind of really unlock this population. Like we said, it's a big problem if you don't have enough labour and and in getting that community. One thing that Isharam mentioned was about community and how do you engage with the community? How do you educate this community? We understand it cannot be done overnight. It's it has been the case for so many years. This and it is there is cultural and traditional elements to it. So we need to kind of design it in a way that we move this gradually forward in terms of getting women into the industry. You know, simple things like Ishara, we invite when we recruit people, women. We try to invite the parents to come and see the place. So there is this: you don't know what you don't know. We have to invite people to come and see. We invite school children. We have days where we have open days to come and educate, to go and show the property and see that this is not a place of vice, this is a place of professionalism. This is a place of safe environment to work, and you can grow your career. So that's the main message that we want to try to drive, and we obviously want the government to also support this. And we've been successful in one element, but there are more more things to do.

Dhananath Fernando  17:23
Isham also wanted to understand now. For an example, when we did some research, for an example, the mobility factor in certain markets improved the female labour force participation. For an example, invention of the scooter instead of a motorbike, because of that public transport challenge, can be sorted out if the female can actually ride the scooter, and that solves the problem of like you know that crossing the leg and you know so it's safe and easy to travel. Are there any trends that you see that can be improve the participation, like the macro factors. I mean, it may be a government. You mentioned about the government regulation, but for an example, if there's let's say a bus working, or if there's like a little thing that can be done, which can be conducive to attract more females. Like you know, there are security issues, or like there are certain issues in the community if that can be solved. I think you address couple of things like you know inviting them so they open up for the property. They know how this industry works. But likewise, are there any things that you came across? Because I'm sure it also geographically it may be different because from one market to the other it it may be different. But just I'm curious that have you noticed certain things which actually a little thing, but can really make a drastic difference?

Speaker 1  18:48
Yeah, I think Ishara. I mean, over the years it has definitely improved. Mobility has improved. Now we see a lot of bikes and scooters in our staff areas or colleague areas, so that has definitely helped as well. Overall public transport. So, as we are the kind of largest hospitality provider in this country, to kind of refer into your earlier question, we believe we also have to take the lead. So, in terms of giving transportation, giving access to these you know bikes and scooters, and and really driving this shift around you know thinking about the industry, so we have seen those things improve. But within Colombo, that has improved more. When you go to like places like Habarana or Yala, it's little less because Yale is in the middle of the jungle. But in definitely Kalambo and suburban areas like Kandy, Hikadua, Bayruala, definitely we've seen that really impacting us positively.

Dhananath Fernando  19:45
Ishara also wanted to understand. Even Hisham can chip in now. In in the hood, I mean, the hospitality industry, there must be different departments. Like I don't know the you know culinary to room services to engineering. To gardening, to so many professional, I mean departments. Is it because sometimes people believe okay, female participation is only constrained for like selected departments. It is not across the board. What is your experience, or can you tell us for the larger audience? Is it like only for selected departments, or even what's it? How it looks like the training process and how you open it up for everybody

Speaker 2  20:27
across because hospitality, you know, it's very surprising because in the health sector you have the highest number of female participation in Sri Lanka. But when it comes to hospitality, also like health, we have all the departments. We have human resources, we have IT, we have housekeeping, of course, front office and the traditional areas. But in addition to that, we have other departments as well. So you know, we we we see a lot of women now coming into non-traditional roles as well because, like like into the maintenance, the engineering department, we see more females joining now, and also you know even public area to other you know services areas. A lot of women are joining now, and we have actually I think it's our responsibility to go and talk more about it and create awareness that these kind of jobs are available, and that female participation is kind of you know we are looking forward to welcoming these people to come and join us and grow with us actually, and also we want to show it as a career, not as a job, but a career which they can join and they can grow and take up higher positions. And in terms of training as well, we have you know we have succession planning programmes inbuilt in our system from a junior level to even up to general manager. And in those programmes also, we are more and more, we are encouraging female participation, so that we are we are very keen to show them that there is career progression, and they also have a career with cinema, hotels, and resorts like any other career.

Dhananath Fernando  22:13
Excellent. At the same time, Hisham and Ishara, are there any? Can you share because ultimately the stories matters. Yes. Can you share a few stories like how actually females joined probably as a junior role and like how the experience got the you know gathered the experience and pretty much you know climbed up the ladder and the success stories and sometimes I mean these resorts also I think you have a kind of an international presence but really you know coming up on strategies and and providing a service, and we should not forget that it's $1 dollar generating industry, and it has a very quite a long tail impact because lot of small medium enterprises, entrepreneurs, prop writers, everyone is incorporated in this chain. So share a few stories in with with your experience how things have changed and how women have basically excelled in this industry in your chain or anything that you have come across.

Speaker 1  23:12
You want me okay. So no, we have one of the problems we have is there's not enough stories right. So that's what we're trying to figure out. We have one or two leaders in resorts. One who has been with us for a long time since the opening of Cinnamon Bay. She started as housekeeping in the housekeeping department. She made her kind of work herself up. She was a young mother a few years ago, kind of we had to accommodate her kind of timelines around it. So, work time, parenthood, or being a mother is a big career break, big career kind of block we've seen in the industry. A lot of young people come into the industry, but then when you become a mother, then it gets stifled. But we had to. I mean, that's one of the success stories. She kind of worked with us. We had to work with her in terms of accommodating that. But now, now she's you know head of a resort at Trinco Blue Tanuja. I think we've had one her story also told. One of those one of the episodes you you hosted, but I mean that's one of the success stories. We have another resort manager at Binthota. She is also young female resort manager, Sriyangani. So that's another big success story for us in Colombo. We have directors of rooms and operations, so there are good success stories, but like I said, it's not enough. We need more leaders, so that I think rather than us talking, when when we have enough women leaders showing that this is possible, more and more young girls and women will come into the industry. So that's the big focus for

Dhananath Fernando  25:02
us. Got it. And also, is there? I mean, with the survey that you have done, are there any insights? What basically stops them sometimes? You know, to shift the career path, or like sometimes they are aspired to go, but probably the supporting system is not there. For an example, with childcare, probably after they're getting married, or maybe it's the you know the the problem of travelling because your resorts are also all over the island, and sometimes you have to do transfers, things like that. Are there any particular insights that has come across, or is it a perception matter? Okay, it's either it's you know this is kind of a male patriotical job is what you are looking at when it comes to the hospitality industry. Where is like the where is the problem, or whether there are there are

Speaker 2  25:56
perceptions as well. I would say there is not because there are, but at the same time, there are some genuine problems as well in this. You know, in terms of females when they start their career, but when they get married, most of the time in Sri Lankan context, they are asked not to continue in hospitality. And then, even if they do continue when they get you know a baby, then from there, their career kind of gets strived. So, but what we have done is with the JH 100 day paternal leave, the parental leave programme, we have ensured that you know a female as well as males both get 100 days off when you get a baby to support you know ensure that you support each other. No favouritism. No favouritism in a policy. So we've actually kind of embraced that, and we see more and more females now wanting to continue work even after having a baby. They come back after 100 days, and they want to. And also there are employer, you know, assisted treasures and all that is mainly for Kalambo hotels at the moment, but we are looking at such facilities even in the regions to see whether we can encourage females to leave their kids if they don't have a support network to come back to work. So that is something which is Also positive, and in Sri Lankan, you know, villages we also see the parents. If they are supportive, they are supportive. But when they are not supportive, like if they are not believing in this job as a career for a you know suitable career in that sense for a female female, then they discourage. But if not, there is you know family support. Then we see we have seen females really excel in our business. So we, from our perspective, we would want to do more in terms of supporting them, so that they would want to continue working and continue continue growing. We want to show them a career path and and just show them that you know we want to create more and more role models. So that will in turn kind of motivate young female to join the industry and grow with the industry. So that's the plan.

Dhananath Fernando  28:17
Got it. Ishara also from the little, I know you also run an academy, which is the Cinnamon Hospitality Academy. Tell us a little bit about the academy and also the trends of like you know male female participation and how have you structured it and how that upskilling process or the skidding process takes place at the academy.

Speaker 2  28:38
Okay, so Cinnamon Hospitality Academy is a partnership, partnership with Cinema Hotels and Resorts plus with EHL. EHL is I call Hotel Disan is one of the very you know I think is the number one hospitality education you know institutes in the world and and also SHMA is Swiss Hotel Management Academy. We partner with those, you know, kind of education partners. EHL, SHMA is kind of administrative partner in delivering that course in Sri Lanka with the Cinema One Hospitality Academy. So we have basically we are. are we have we have four different programmes. One is hotel operations that is more of guest service and housekeeping related. So we call it hotel operations and culinary and food and beverage. And we also have another general course in the academy. So we are seeing more and more. Of course, as per the trend, we see about 60 65% males joining the academy and about 34% females.

Dhananath Fernando  34:41
You know, it's employers.


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